A City Hall custodian walks past a television set up for overflow viewing outside council chambers as Oakland Mayor Jean Quan gave the state of the city speech at City Hall in Oakland, Calif., on Wednesday, February 27, 2013.

Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle

A City Hall custodian walks past a television set up for overflow...

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Reverend Ken Chambers gives an opening prayer before Oakland Mayor Jean Quan, lower left silhouette, gave the state of the city speech at City Hall in Oakland, Calif., on Wednesday, February 27, 2013.

Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle

Reverend Ken Chambers gives an opening prayer before Oakland Mayor...

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Oakland Mayor Jean Quan gave the state of the city speech at City Hall in Oakland, Calif., on Wednesday, February 27, 2013.

Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle

Oakland Mayor Jean Quan gave the state of the city speech at City...

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Oakland Mayor Jean Quan, center, gets a hug from Ken Maxey, left, after she gave the state of the city speech at City Hall in Oakland, Calif., on Wednesday, February 27, 2013.

Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle

Oakland Mayor Jean Quan, center, gets a hug from Ken Maxey, left,...

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Oakland Mayor Jean Quan gave the state of the city speech at City Hall in Oakland, Calif., on Wednesday, February 27, 2013.

Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle

Oakland Mayor Jean Quan gave the state of the city speech at City...

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Mayor Jean Quan lauded increased development in Oakland in her annual State of the City address.

Oakland Mayor Jean Quan, facing the most critical year of her tenure, celebrated many of the city's achievements in her State of the City address Wednesday evening.

Quan's speech at City Hall touched on an array of issues, including a drop in the unemployment rate, a net gain in jobs and several impending major projects, including the BART Airport Connector and the redevelopment of the former Oakland Army Base.

But she spent roughly a third of her 73-minute speech focused on problems that dog her administration, including fiscal instability and crime.

"As mayor, there's nothing more important to me than the safety of every individual," Quan said. "Robberies, burglaries and auto theft are what hurt the quality of life for many of our citizens."

The city's police force, grappling with the highest violent crime rate in the state, has declined from 837 officers to 611 since 2008 due, in part, to a weak economy and unsteady municipal finances. But Quan noted that adding officers is not as simple as it sounds. The mayor said a single police officer costs the city $200,000 a year in pay, benefits, training and equipment. To add 200 officers, which is a city goal, she said, would cost $73 million per year - math that doesn't jibe with the figure of $200,000 per officer - on top of the city's existing $400 million general fund budget.

"It's not unreachable, but it's not an easy thing," Quan said of her desire to bring the force to more than 800 officers in five years.

Some City Council members raised their eyebrows at the math.

"Seventy-three million seems a bit high to me," said Council President Pat Kernighan.

Crime on the rise

Quan did not address the fact that crime has increased in each of her first two years in office, putting the first-term mayor under pressure to show that she can turn things around before she runs for re-election next year.

Unable to come up with a viable plan to address the rise in crime, Quan pushed for the recent hiring of consultant Bob Wasserman and his deputy, former Los Angeles Police Chief and New York Police Commissioner William Bratton.

Bishop Bob Jackson, a leader of a group of pastors working for greater public safety, said he was disappointed that Quan didn't have more details about how she would hire more officers. He said he was also frustrated that Quan didn't discuss how she would work better with Alameda County officials, who have offered to help Oakland with its crime.

Some positives

Quan's speech touted many positive things, such as Oakland's burgeoning and lively arts and entertainment scene, its improving schools and increasingly involved residents.

But Jackson said any positive developments are diminished by ongoing problems.

"Because shootings and homicides continue, it offsets anything else going on that may be great," he said.

Quan said she has stabilized the city's finances, which she says are in their best shape in a decade. Sales tax and business license revenues have increased, and she said unions helped stabilize the city's finances through voluntary pay and benefit cuts.

Quan highlighted the fact that the city's most recent budget had no layoffs for the first time in five years.

'Kicking the can'

But deeper fiscal issues are being ignored, said Nicholas Heidorn, a member of the city's Budget Advisory Commission, a citizen board appointed by the mayor that gives fiscal recommendations to the City Council.

Heidorn said the city doesn't seem to have a plan to fund the more than $2 billion in unfunded liabilities for pensions and other benefits.

"We're kicking the can down the road," he said in an interview before the speech.

Quan urged council members to rethink the city's finances.

"If we don't change how we behave, in a couple of years we're going to be in the same financial morass," she said, adding that massive economic growth is needed to hire the officers the city wants.

"To solidly increase the police force by 200 officers, it would have to take a boom, an absolutely amazing boom," she said.

Quan's day started oddly as she was criticized for using her weekly newsletter to advertise a local "Introduction to Lock Picking" workshop - designed to help people who lock themselves out - even as residents grapple with a spike in burglaries. Quan apologized in a statement but said volunteers wrote the item.